


My Old Friend

by theoldwillweep



Category: Newsies - All Media Types, Newsies!: the Musical - Fierstein/Menken
Genre: F/M, M/M, jack leaves for santa fe, no idea how to write the summary but basically, then he comes back!!, yahoo!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-22
Updated: 2019-02-22
Packaged: 2019-11-03 16:55:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,919
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17881625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theoldwillweep/pseuds/theoldwillweep
Summary: The year is 1901, and no one has seen Jack, who now resides in Santa Fe. Until he doesn’t anymore.





	My Old Friend

**Author's Note:**

> tw for very slight violence!

         The year is 1901.

         David Jacobs is now eighteen years old; he has graduated from school, as well as from being a newsie.

         Two years prior, David had felt like he ruled the world.

         He had just won the Newsboy Strike of 1899 with his newfound best friend, Jack Kelly, and things were looking good.

         That was, until Jack disappeared.

         The boy had always fantasized about being in some far-off land called Santa Fe; after the strike, his plan was to go, and finally live the life he always dreamed that he would.

         However, David and the rest of the boys persuaded him to stay, and he did for awhile.

         The strike birthed his relationship with Katherine, which got dicey in its early stages. When they decided to break it off, they still saw each other often, remaining good friends.

         With Katherine (romantically) out of the picture, Jack and David spent a lot more time together, now that Jack’s free time wasn’t consumed by the reporter.

         Jack would come over for dinner often, and most always stay the night. Whenever they would show up to the circulation gate together, the other boys would tease them, asking Jack about how it felt to stay in a _real_ house.

         David often caught himself daydreaming about Jack; his tanned skin, his deep green eyes, his glowing smile.

         For the longest time, it felt like there was something there.

         Something that could never leave the privacy of David’s room, or dark alleyways. Something that no one else could ever hear of. Something that David could get in trouble for so much as _thinking_ about. 

         But now he would never find out.

         Something that would forever bother David was that he was with Jack, right before he left, and he still didn’t know why he did it.

          _The boys sat on Davey’s fire escape, immersed in deep conversation._

_“Hey, Dave?”_

_“Yeah, Jackie?”_

_Davey turned to face the other boy._

_The image that Davey was greeted with was the other boy’s eyes boring into his own. He returned the boy’s fervent gaze._

_They continued to gaze deeply into each other’s eyes, until Jack’s flickered down to Davey’s lips. He shook his head._

_“It’s nothin’. I’ll see ya tomorrow, Davey,” Jack said, voice cracking, gaze refusing to meet Davey’s._

_“Alright, Jackie... see you tomorrow,” Davey replied, confused._

_That night, Davey slept peacefully._

_His morning, however, was anything but peaceful._

_Davey arrived at the circulation gate, without Jack, much to the other boys’ dismay._

_“What’s wrong?” Davey prompted, noticing something was off._

_“Jack ain’t with ya?” Elmer asked._

_Davey shook his head, confused as to what this meant._

_“He left for your place last night, but he never came back,” Crutchie informed, and the faces of the boys surrounding them fell further._

_Davey’s blood ran cold._

_His first immediate thought was that something bad had happened to him, which was a concern that he voiced to the group._

_Mush and Blink agreed to go to the police, to see if anything might have happened._

_Davey was prepared to go with them, until he remembered something._

_Santa Fe._

_While he didn’t want to believe it was true, it was a possibility._

_Just as they were departing from the other boys, Davey stopped in his tracks._

_“I’ve- um. I’ve gotta check on something,” he stammered out._

_“What?” Mush asked, slightly bewildered, but Davey was already running in the opposite direction._

_Standing in front of the train station, Davey willed himself to go in._

_After several minutes of standing outside, clenching and unclenching his fists, he finally built up the courage to make his way inside._

_He hesitantly walked over to the ticket booth, and saw a woman with a kind smile._

_“H-Hello, um. I was just wondering if there was a boy here yesterday, purchasing a ticket?” Davey asked, and began to describe Jack. He described the boy’s tanned skin, his deep green eyes, his glowing smile. He recounted the aspects of the boy that he had been admiring just the previous night._

_“Oh, yes! Jack Kelly, is it?”_

_Davey frantically nodded his head._

_“Kind boy, he was, seemed like he was in a bit of a hurry. He purchased a ticket to Santa Fe, New Mexico, took the first train available.”_

_Davey nodded his head slowly, barely processing the information._

_“Thank you,” he said, voice barely above a whisper._

_He staggered out of the building, and felt tears well up in his eyes._

_Feeling as if he were going to collapse, he headed in the opposite direction of Newsies Square, opting to head home instead._

_Wanting to avoid his mother seeing his tear-streaked face, he slowly dragged himself up the fire escape._

_Upon opening his window, he found a scrap of paper that he didn’t recognize._

_With shaking fingers, he picked up the note, unfolded it, and a saw a single sentence scrawled out in unmistakle messy handwriting._

I’m sorry _. -_ JK

_Unable to wait until he got inside, Davey fell to his knees, and began to bawl his eyes out._

To this day, David wished that he had noticed that something was wrong with Jack on the fire escape that night. He wished that he had made the boy stay over, at least.

         Shaking his head, David willed the thoughts of his best friend’s departure to vanish. Not a day went by where he didn’t think of it at least once.

         Nearly two years had passed since Jack had abandoned him.

         After Jack left, his father’s arm healed, and he and Les went back to school. David graduated, which was an impressive feat for someone in his social class. However, due to his social class, his parents didn’t have enough money to send him to college, but he was content with what he had.

         In Jack’s absense, he and Katherine had become quite good friends. She had asked him what he wanted to do, career-wise, and told him that he’d make an amazing reporter when he said that he wasn’t sure. It was an idea that he had genuinely considered for a good while, but decided that teaching was best for him.

         So, that was what he was doing now. Searching for a teaching job. To keep himself afloat, he took up a part-time job at Jacobi’s.

         Most mornings, he, Katherine, Sarah, and Les would walk together, each making their ways to their respective jobs. 

         David enjoyed walking Les to work each morning. He would ensure that his brother made it to work safely, and he would get to see his friends. While David had outgrown being a newsie, a lot of his friends were still young, and desperately needed the income.

         This particular morning, nothing seemed out of the ordinary.

         Les skipped cheerfully by his side, while Katherine and Sarah giggled about something, pinkies intertwined.

         David looked longingly at the two.

         He couldn’t help but feel spiteful that the two had received their happy ending, but he hadn’t. 

         While he didn’t know if there had actually been anything between him and Jack, he definitely felt something for that dime-novel cowboy.

         As he thought about what could have been, he let out a sigh as he mentally scolded himself for thinking about the boy again.

         “What’s wrong, David?” Les asked.

         David flushed, embarrassed that someone had heard him.

         “N-Nothing,” he stammered out in reply.    

         Katherine and Sarah departed from the two boys, waving enthusiastically as they did so.

         David and Les pushed on towards Newsies Square.

         Les chatted in his ear, and he distantly heard Sally’s name thrown around a couple of times.

         David felt disconnected from the world. He could hear that Les was speaking to him, but none of the words actually reached his ears.

         As the two reached the circulation gate, he could hear Les stop mid-sentence as they saw a large group forming.

         The two brothers hesitantly approached the ever-growing crowd, curious to see what all of the commotion was about.

         David instructed Les to stay out of the gaggle of people, and began the journey of making his way to the center.

         Somewhere within the crowd, he saw Race.

         Tapping the other boy’s shoulder, he asked, “What the hell is going on?”

         Taking the unlit cigar out of his mouth, Race responded with, “You oughta see it for yaself, Mouth.”

         Race’s remark only served to make David more curious, so he continued to push through the sea of newsies.

         That’s when he saw him.

         Jack fucking Kelly.

         He and Jack locked eyes, and they held each other’s gaze for a moment, before a wide grin took over Jack’s features.

         “Hey, Dave, ya miss me?”

         The crowd went silent, all eyes turning towards him.

         David’s face set into a scowl. 

         He reared his fist back, and punched Jack square in the jaw.

         The boy staggered backwards, and David looked down at his fist, surprised by his own actions. The surprise soon reverted back to anger.

         Jack rubbed his jaw, eyes wide in shock.

         Neither of them saying a word, David grabbed Jack’s collar and dragged him to the nearest alleyway.

         Once they were concealed by the privacy of the dark alleyway, David slammed Jack into the wall.

         “What the hell are ya doin’, Davey?” Jack asked.

         “Don’t call me Davey,” he spat.

         Once Jack had left, David grew very sensitive to the nickname that Jack had given him. The other boys took note of this, and made sure not to use the name around him, as they were afraid of how he might react. 

         “That doesn’t answer my question,” Jack said calmly.

         “What do you _think_ I’m doing? Am I wrong in thinking that this is completely justified?”

         “...Well, no—“

         “Exactly.”

         David let out an angry huff, and began advancing towards Jack.

         “I’ve half a mind to punch you again.”

         “I don’t think you will, Dave.”

         Preparing to prove Jack wrong, he grabbed Jack by his collar, and wound up his fist again.

         However, looking into those deep green eyes that he fell in love with, both his scowl and his fist dropped.

         Instead, he fell into Jack’s chest, and his own chest began to heave with sobs.

         “Why did you leave, Jackie?” he sobbed, the past two years finally catching up with him. “Why did you leave me?”

         “Shh,” Jack soothed, rubbing David’s back. “I’s real sorry, Dave.”

         Taking a deep sigh, he said, “Please don’t hate me more than ya already do when I tell ya this.”

         When David didn’t respond, he continued. “I’s real sweet on ya, Dave. Have been since I left. I-I just.. I couldn’t stay here knowin’ that you wouldn’t ever feel the same, but then I felt awful up and leavin’ ya’s with nothin’ but a lousy note, so I—“

         Jack was interrupted by David’s lips on his.

         “Just please don’t leave again, Jackie,” he breathed once they parted.

         “Wouldn’t dream of it,” he smiled.

* * *

         The year was 1903.

         Davey waited, alone, in his and Jack’s shared apartment.

         If he listened closely, he could hear Katherine and Sarah singing loudly in the next apartment over, bringing a smile to his face.

         He gazed out of the window impatiently, hoping to catch a glimpse of Jack returning home.

         However, his gaze snapped towards the door once he heard the click of the lock.

         The door swung open to reveal Jack, who was smiling brightly.

         Bounding over to him, Davey wrapped the other boy in a tight embrace.

         “Don’t you ever leave me again.”

         “Wouldn’t dream of it, Davey.” 

**Author's Note:**

> yikes!!!
> 
> hope you enjoyed! :)


End file.
